Many reading this edition of the Boston Phoenix already know that after 46 years of publishing as a newspaper, we are changing formats, saying goodbye to newsprint, hello to glossy pages, and folding the content and sensibility of our sister publication, Stuff, into our new pages.

The biggest transformation, the most dramatic part of the makeover, is that as of next week the Boston Phoenix will be a magazine, called — not surprisingly — The Phoenix.

We'll still be weekly. We'll still be free. And you will still be able to find us in those big red boxes all over town.

Our aim — simply put — is to make the editorial mix richer: the sharp bead on politics, the smart take on arts and entertainment, and the unpredictable points of view in reporting trends and events will still be hallmarks. But as you follow along as The Phoenix magazine moves forward, you will see that our depth and breadth have expanded to include fashion and design; coverage of the personalities that give Boston its energy; and even more on dining and drinking and nightlife.

Change may be a constant in life, but these days, it has a special imperative. Change is the engine that drives us all. It challenges individuals and institutions alike — not to just keep pace, but to forge ahead.

For those of us working at The Phoenix, change has always been something else: a reason to exist. We've been many things over the years, but we have always been on the move.

Today's audience is the most demanding in history. At its fingertips it has the ability the access information in print, online, via tablets and smartphones. Still, one thing has not changed: the demand for quality. Our sense of mission is equally constant: to enlighten, to educate, to entertain, and to challenge.

That's the business we have been in since we first hit the streets as a newspaper called Boston After Dark in 1966. Over the years the Boston Phoenix and Stuff magazine embodied and expanded those ideals. And The Phoenix magazine will redefine them for readers and advertisers old and new, just — I might add — as we are in the process of redefining and reinventing online radio at wfnx.com.

As the long-standing Publisher and Chairman of the Phoenix Media/Communications Group, I have had the privilege and good fortune of guiding our enterprise through numerous, almost countless, changes. Our internal metamorphoses, however, pale when compared with the radical evolution of the media at large, which has been existential.

Throughout it all, the greatest joy, the fundamental satisfaction of my job has been to work with scores of terrifically talented and fiercely dedicated women and men. Their efforts constitute our past, our present, and — in the pages next week of The Phoenix — our future.

Rupert Murdoch's Watergate Murdoch is a tycoon of darkness. Aside from his handful of quality publications — the Wall Street Journal, the Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Australian — his News Corporation specializes in smears, sensationalism, and mendacity.

Ask questions Portland residents concerned about the drowning death of Nathan Bihlmaier saw the advantage of having competing news organizations last week, and may yet continue benefiting from this as the investigation continues.

Gemmapalooza and RI’s strange relationship with the truth In the run-up to Congressional candidate Anthony Gemma's highly anticipated press conference this week, unveiling allegations of voter fraud by incumbent Congressman David Cicilline, the chattering class — this observer included — was pretty much unanimous: Gemma had to deliver the goods or he was finished.

A Convenient Excuse On October 2, I led a climate protest inside the offices of the Boston Globe .

Blown away I am, I admit, a frequent critic of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram — not because I dislike the paper, but rather due to my recognition of the importance of a vibrant, strong, active daily newspaper is to Maine and its largest city, and because I badly want the PPH to be that paper.

Alexander Cockburn’s $10,000 Arab connection Village Voice staff writer Alexander Cockburn, a journalist noted for his media criticism and for his biting criticism of Israel, accepted $10,000 in 1982 as a fellowship from an organization promoting Arab causes.

A libertarian's view of the Barstool/Brady child-porn fiasco Sophisticated First Amendment scholars, lawyers, and media commentators, all of whom are strongly free-speech/free-press supporters, were critical of Coakley for allegedly engaging in a legal bluff — the veiled threat of possible prosecution under the state's child-porn statute — to convince Portnoy to remove the offending and exploitative image from his site.

The Ploughshares years After reading an item on the Boston Globe book page noting that DeWitt Henry had published a memoir, I bought a copy of the book.

#Occupy Media The tent villages of the Occupy movement — including those here in Maine — are excellent visual reminders of, and ever-present embodiments of, the social- and economic-justice challenges that our society faces.

BACK TO THE FUTURE | September 18, 2012 Welcome to our new world. Or perhaps it's back to the future.

A NEW BEGINNING | September 13, 2012 Many reading this edition of the Boston Phoenix already know that after 46 years of publishing as a newspaper, we are changing formats, saying goodbye to newsprint, hello to glossy pages, and folding the content and sensibility of our sister publication, Stuff , into our new pages.